Pandora Maxton invited us over to take a look at her gorgeous kitchen. Here, we chat about colour in the kitchen, adding personality to a modern build and, of course, the new all-electric AGA range cookers…
It’s unsurprising that content creator and stylist Pandora Maxton’s house is beautiful. After all, her whole work life is based around creating great looking interiors. What is notable, though, is the amazing feel her home has. It’s alive with verdant plants, it’s just that bit undone and it’s the kind of place you could happily sink into a sofa and not get up for hours. The house is instantly welcoming and it’s obvious it is a real sanctuary for Pandora and her family.
When she moved into the house 22 years ago it was very different. Pandora knew she had taken on a massive project but was undaunted. Having studied fine art and printmaking, she worked with fabric and wallpaper company Nobilis in Chelsea Harbour before going on to study interior design. It meant she had a clear idea of what she wanted.
The house, which is just outside York, has four bedrooms and was built at the very end of the 1960s. It lacked personality and had no period features, but the wrap-around garden and six acres of land meant it worked for Pandora so she decided to go for it.
“There’s something very special about having a house in the middle of a plot because you feel as if you’re cocooned,” Pandora says.
It took a year to make the major structural changes and she was keen to add features to make the house look more established. As well as a back and side extension, she added a pitched roof on the dormer windows making giving the house real character.
The house has evolved over the years and the look is deliciously maximalist and with real soul. Beautiful art is juxtaposed with useful items. The space is filled, but it doesn’t feel cluttered.
It is home to Pandora, her husband, James, and her children, Ellen, Cameron and Finn. It’s a proper family house – a home rather than a show space – and it’s easy to see the love that has been poured into making it work.
Longevity is important to Pandora and the kitchen now is the same one she put in 20 years ago.
She designed it with a carpenter. She wanted really deep, recessed Shaker cabinets. He made them out of old pine church pews. Pandora painted the kitchen herself. She went for the same bright grass green colour for the cabinets and walls and punctuated the run with an AGA 6:4 in Claret.
“The kitchen was really bright and funky, then over time I’ve painted it again and again,” Pandora says. “When we moved in I’d always wanted an AGA range cooker and as the kitchen wasn’t very big I chose an AGA 6:4 because it had a fan oven and gas hob. I felt with a traditional AGA I would have needed a back-up oven and hob, particularly in the summer, and we just didn’t have the space.”
Fast-forward 20 years and Pandora’s original kitchen is still going strong. A few years ago, Pandora competed in the BBC TV show Best House in Town – and won. At the time she gave the kitchen a little bit of a facelift and added a Lapicida worktop. Then, earlier this year, she repainted the cabinetry in Olive by Little Greene and replaced the original AGA 6:4 with an all-electric AGA eR3 100 cooker in White. She chose it for its functionality as well as the look.
AGA range cookers have moved on hugely since Pandora renovated the kitchen so the initial issue she had with feeling as if she needed a back-up hob has been solved – the AGA eR3 features a built-in three-zone induction hob, an AGA hotplate that heats up in around 12 minutes and controllable cast-iron ovens, giving her the flexibility to make the cooker work for family life while also controlling energy use.
“I wanted to go back to a heat-storage AGA because now they’re electric and controllable it just made sense. When they were oil you had to choose whether to have every oven and hotplate on all the time. Now they are way more flexible, which is brilliant.
“I can’t believe how much the induction hob has changed my life. It’s just so quick and it’s so easy to clean. The cast-iron ovens are great too. Slow-cooked meat in the AGA is amazing because you can just leave it for ages. Cakes are brilliant too.”
Pandora is keen on cooking from scratch and barely using processed food.
James looks after a large vegetable plot which provides much of the family’s food. “I like to cook homemade pizzas or maybe a great steak and a salad. It’s nothing fancy, just real family food,” Pandora says. “I used to do all the cooking, but since the lockdowns, when James was at home, I have to fight to cook now. He’s always in the kitchen. He’s even making yoghurt. He’s become cooking obsessed. My kids think he’s the one who does all the cooking, which is rather annoying as I taught him everything he knows!”
Of course, it’s not just the cooking ability of the AGA eR3 that appealed to Pandora. As a creative, great design is really important to her. At work she creates content for brands, including John Lewis, who appreciate her ability to make home life look so beautiful. Her career really took off after she joined Instagram. Ironically, she was reluctant to join the platform and “put myself out there” but a friend persuaded her to join and her account just took off.
It’s easy to see why. Her content is honest and authentic and she makes creating beautiful spaces look so easy.
“I love it,” she says, “because it’s being creative on my own terms.”
